Not PC

. . . promoting capitalist acts between consenting adults.

Friday, October 14, 2005

Wisdom of sorts

Here you go: the perfect banner for this site, I'm told. And I'll be away for the weekend in Thames -- seeking further wisdom of course -- so it will remain as the banner for the weekend. Cheers. I've left plenty of reading for you.

And in tribute to one of the world's great drinkers, here's some thoughts on the subject from Samuel Johnson:

Boswell: "You must allow me, Sir, at least that it produces truth; in vino veritas, you know, Sir." Johnson: "That would be useless to a man who knew he was not a liar when he was sober."

"Exercise!! I never heard that he used any: he might, for aught I know, walk to the alehouse; but I believe he was always carried home again."

"In the bottle discontent seeks for comfort, cowardice for courage, and bashfulness for confidence."

Boswell: "I think, Sir, you once said to me, that not to drink wine was a great deduction from life." Johnson: "It is a diminution of pleasure, to be sure; but I do not say a diminution of happiness. There is more happiness in being rational."

"A man who exposes himself when he is intoxicated, has not the art of getting drunk."

"Claret is the liquor for boys; port, for men; but he who aspires to be a hero must drink brandy."

"There are, indeed, few who are able to drink brandy. That is a power rather to be wished for than attained."

"Melancholy, indeed, should be diverted by every means but drinking."

"This is one of the disadvantages of wine. It makes a man mistake words for thoughts."

"I must entreat you to be scrupulous in the use of strong liquors. One night's drunkenness may defeat the labours of forty days well employed."

"As soon as I enter the door of a tavern, I experience an oblivion of care, and a freedom from solicitude : when I am seated, I find the master courteous, and the servants obsequious to my call; anxious to know and ready to supply my wants : wine there exhilarates my spirits, and prompts me to free conversation and an interchange of discourse with those whom I most love : I dogmatise and am contradicted, and in this conflict of opinion and sentiments I find delight."

"There is nothing which has yet been contrived by man, by which so much happiness is produced as by a good tavern. A tavern chair is the throne of human felicity."

"Life admits not of delays; when pleasure can be had, it is fit to catch it."

Some cultures deserved to die out

Not every culture is worth saving or preserving. There are some cultures that deserved to die out -- the Maya were just one, and on this as so much else Jared Diamond's book Collapse has it wrong again. As a tragic loss, they weren't, and Roger Sandall is right on the money. "I don’t care if the Maya civilization did collapse. I don’t think we should shed a single retrospective tear":

The ripples of Greek civilization spread globally, and deserved to. There were no ripples from the Maya. No enlightenment. Nothing. Just art and masonry [some of it above] and the dried blood of long-dead sacrificial victims. That is not nearly enough.

Inca culture was another blot on the landscape of history, and Tibor Machan is one who sheds no retrospective tears over its demise. Under the Inca for instance: "As many as 200 children used to be killed to please some god or another. And sometimes the sacrifice would involve cutting out the heart of a living individual." Nice culture that, the Incas. It brings to mind my favourite quote from Thomas Sowell:

Cultures are not museum pieces. They are the working machinery of everyday life. Unlike objects of aesthetic contemplation, working machinery is judged by how well it works, compared to the alternatives.

The only thing that can be done that will make a difference is to stop all this collective praise and blame and to recognize that justice requires looking at and judging all human beings individually, based on their own choices to act well or badly.

When fridge meets philosopher

We are the original problem-solving discipline. We care about problems and are not afraid to play with a variety of solutions, ranging from quick fixes to deep changes to the underlying structure of reality.

Why Philosophers won't actually end up Ruling the World

I was the only person in the [Philosophy] Department who could fix the fridge on level six.

Cale speaks

A friend sent me a recent '60 Second Interview' with John Cale that I enjoyed, and some of you might. (If you don't know by now who John Cale is, you probably won't care -- just to clarify, he never wrote a song called 'Cocaine.') The interview is short -- just sixty seconds -- but he does talk more about the Velvet Underground than he does normallly, and he reveals some 'interesting' recent listening whose influence has found its way onto his new album, blackAcetate:. Cale goes hip hop! Cale sings falsetto*!! Oh Lord!! "Hip hop is the new jazz," says Cale. Oh dear.

And which current bands "have the VU spirit?" Cale's picks: Beck, Elbow and the Strokes. Who would have thunk it.

New site poll: What will Winston do?

It's taken a while, but my previous site poll to see whether the Maori Party can support Labour appears to have finally and barely come up with the correct result (below): that they can't unless Labour repeal the Foreshore and Seabed Act (as Ive argued they should). Last cab on the rank and it seems one destined for the crossbenches, which is probably where they should be.

So now there's a new site poll, reflecting the speculation that's emerging this morning that because the Maori Party can't go to bed with her, Helen's needs to sleep with Winston. Question is, will she put the tongue in?

'Peter Rabbit: Tank Killer'

This 'children's' story is hilarious. 'Written' by both Beatrix Potter and Sven Hassell (now there's a writing team made in heaven) it comes with a hat tip to Sir Humph, who points out quite accurately that the tank has been misattributed. Fancy that. I fancy that the 'Panzerfaust' also looks more like a bazooka ... but only a pedant would point that out. It's not the only thing about it that's decidely odd.

Print it out and read it to your kids tonight. They'll thank you for it later.

Thursday, October 13, 2005

Visiting site with dry feet

Here's a boon for overworked architects: ArchiCam. Instead of visiting sites only to find the builder hasn't shown up again -- or having to field all those awkward questions that builders just can't avoid asking -- a New South Wales firm of architects have set up a webcam to allow them to keep up with progress. I bet the builders love it.Story here, webcam here. [Hat tip butter paper]

Wounded Lion still bleats like a lamb

Sad old Brian O'Driscoll is still bleating about being blown out of a ruck in the first Lions-All Blacks test. He told The Times, “I have to accept there was no malice in it, but a bad tackle is a bad tackle. I have been on both sides of that situation and they have to be punished. That didn’t quite happen." Sure, his shoulder still hasn't recovered, but isn't it time to get over it? "Get over it, Brian!"

More interesting are his comments on why the Lions Tour failed to get off the ground, which will apparently be expanded in his book out soon, A Year in the Centre. I doubt that it will challenge Anton Oliver's sour book for genuine bad grace however, or Gavin Henson's.

Invade where?

Remember the expression: 'God invented war so that Americans can learn geography'? It appears God's plan is not working. See this video as partial evidence for the prosecution (3MB to download). [Hat tip TinCanMan]

Bottled stupidity

The things people do to avoid drinking water from their tap: $3.47 for a bottle of Italian water with bubbles in. $4.75 for a four-pack of bottled water you can safely be seen with around the streets of Parnell (right). How dumb do you have to be to buy this stuff?

Britons spend £700 million a year on it, and Americans pay a whopping $22 billion a year for this overpriced tap water -- yes, that' s right, America's two top selling brands, Dasani and Aquafina, are nothing more than reprocessed tap water, and the same process was used in the UK. Here at home, New Zealanders down 40 million litres a year, nearly two thirds of that from Te Waihou spring in Putaruru, which produces water from a source little better than what you use at home to clean your car. That is to say, just as good.

So why do people pay through the nose for what they could get out of the tap? Auckland tap water which mostly comes from dams in the Waitakeres and Hunuas is like having a meal, but it's by no means unpalatable, and what comes out of Auckland's taps is probably the worst of NZ's municipal samples. Even the world's great cities don't have a problem with their water, and in blind taste tests few people can tell bottled water from tap .

The water in Rome is fresh from the mountains; Spanish water is crystal clear and refreshing; even Parisian water is fine. Sure, Sydney water is like a three-course meal, but still drinkable once you get used to it; and London water used to taste as though someone died in it, and was so full of lime that shower heads, kettles and (probably) urinary tracts would regularly clog up -- it was said at one time that a glass of London water has already passed through at least five other people before it got to you -- but Thames Water and Southern Water have changed all that, and even at its worst chilled London tap water was still palatable. The water from Dublin's Liffey is reputed to be the reason Dublin's Guinness tastes so much better than Guinness made elsewhere (NZ water is just too damn clean to make good Guinness apparently) but Dubliners have no problems with what they get in their kitchen sink.

Now it's true that nearly a billion people worldwide don't have access to clean drinking water, more's the pity, and the water in places like Albania, Russia, Sudan and parts of Greece and India are surely to be avoided -- drink your Albanian cocktails without ice cubes just to be safe -- but paying more for bottled water here does nothing to help those who don't have access to clean water, and the horrors of Russian, Albanian and African water just reinforces how good is the tap water most of would enjoy if we didn't insist on paying through the nose for it from the supermarket.

As this chap points out, "do you suppose some water bottlers are having a laugh at their customers' gullibility? How many purchasers of Evian have noticed that this name spelled backwards is 'NAIVE'?"

And why drink bottled water when bottled beer is so much cheaper, and so much better for you? After all historically, bad water is the reason beer drinking caught on, and for most of human history humans consumed clean beer in preference to the dirty water -- why not, when for most of human history water was so contaminated that drinking it was like playing Russian Roulette with giardia. However, boil that water with barley, yeast and hops (a natural antiseptic), strain out the barley husks and let it all stand for a bit so the sugars ferment, and you have a tasty, nutritious, SAFE drink for all the family -- exactly as beer was for much of human history. (That this drink contained alcohol was of course a not unpleasant added bonus.) No wonder the invention of beer produced civilisation, as I might have mentioned once before.

Anyway, if you want to drink chilled bottled water, then just keep a bottle of tap water in the fridge like I do. And spend the money you save on something more worthwhile. Like me. :-)

Blogrolling

I've just been changing around my Blogroll to tidy it up, to organise it a little better, and to make my blogroll better match my News Reader. Please let me know if you should be there but aren't, or if you are there and shouldn't be, or if you should be elsewhere than where you've been filed -- if for instance you consider yourself a Compulsion Touter instead of a National Socialist, or if your blog will become entirely apolitical now the election is (nearly) over.

And if I've inadvertently deleted you, then please let me know. Unless, that is, you've been looking forward to disappearing.

Travelling to Taliesin West...

With this year's Frank Lloyd Wright conference at Taliesin West nearly upon those lucky enough to be attending, the 'Trib' dropped in on Taliesin to see what's afooot...

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. -- After zigzagging happily through the wildness of northern Arizona I dropped down into the Phoenix megalopolis... [where], eventually, I took a left over an aqueduct and followed a winding road through the Sonoran Desert. Within minutes I was holding a glass of chardonnay in the courtyard of the great architect's winter home...

The large, fit stones gave the walls a raw, earthy, almost jigsaw quality. [Arnold] Roy [Taliesin Fellowship member] said: "Somebody once asked, `What did Frank Lloyd Wright have on the walls for decoration?' The walls were decoration."

"This is the last of a breed of building that tried to incorporate the wilderness of Arizona into the design," said ... fellowship member, Tony Puttnam, "His saying about `a view at the rim of the world'--what was he looking at? The whole complexity of things. It's more complicated than a native-based architecture...

Wright himself said that he designed not from ideas but from feelings. In an interview once, Mike Wallace called him an "intellectual" and Wright balked at the title. "I am not an intellectual," he argued. "I have my feet on the ground."From the moment he saw it, he was attracted to the "vast battleground of titanic forces called Arizona." And, also, "the eternal and everlasting smile of the sun."

Anecdotes were trotted out: of the boy, living in a Wright-designed house, who wrote asking him to design a doghouse for his Labrador retriever. (Wright's design appears in the book "Barkitecture.") Of the nearby power lines, which so disturbed Wright that he wrote to President Truman requesting that they be placed underground. When Truman refused, saying it would create a precedent, Wright replied: "I have been creating precedents all my life."

Wednesday, October 12, 2005

Sack McCully

Three electoral defeats in a row, and the Nats are only now starting to talk about sacking the chief strategist. Where on earth he derived this reputation he wields as some sort of strategic genius I can't begin to imagine -- if he'd been in the pay of the Labour Party he couldn't have done a better job on their behalf. Time for McCully to get the Archer.

Islamo-Fascists, "Australia is not for you"

Pakistan's Daily Times has the news that John Howard and his Ministers are telling Islamo-Fascists that if they want Sharia law and a theocratic State, then Australia is not the place for them.

“I’d be saying to clerics who are teaching that there are two laws governing people in Australia, one the Australian law and another the Islamic law, that that is false. If you can’t agree with parliamentary law, independent courts, democracy, and would prefer Sharia law and have the opportunity to go to another country which practises it, perhaps, then, that’s a better option,” said Australia's Treasurer Peter Costello.

Still no Government

Heh heh heh. Still no Government, and as DPF notes "the job of forming a Government is proving more difficult that predicted." Heh heh heh. Does anyone really miss not having a Government meddling with things? Said Helen Clark a few weeks before the 1999 election, "I don't want a country where people have to wake up every morning and wonder what new thing their Government has done."* Best way to ensure that doesn't happen is to have no Government, eh?

Just reflect for a moment: Who really runs the country?** It should now be clear that it's not the Prime Minister, is it.

-------------------------------------------

* That's from memory -- feel free to send me the exact quote.** Who runs the country? You do, of course. Each of you runs your part of it.

Pakistan disaster

Looking for coverage of the disaster in Pakistan -- how many more disasters in just one year! -- I was pointed to Slate, which has a compilation of American coverage of the tragedy. Hat tip Irfan Khawaja, who has some thoughts about the seemingly odd priorities of the Pakistani government:

I'd wanted to refrain from criticizing the Pakistani government at a time like this, but the thought of children trapped in schools without means of rescue (quoted in the Slate roundup) prompts the following thought. We are told by the Pakistani government that there is no equipment to rescue these children. And yet Pakistan has atomic weapons. Is this not an odd inversion of priorities? Did the government of Pakistan think that they needed an "Islamic bomb" more desperately than they needed Chinook-type helicopters and heavy-moving equipment? Or that India (or Israel!) posed a greater threat to Pakistan than an earthquake of this kind?

The Times reports that help to affected areas is painfully slow to arrive, evan as military helicopters "clatter by" overhead. “Why are they not stopping to help us?” asks a man who buried more than 60 people yesterday. “We need help here or more of our children will die.” Fair question.

The Muslim's blood cannot be spilled whatever his work or place, while spilling the blood of the infidel, whatever his work or place, is authorized if he is not trustworthy," said an audiotape broadcast on the Internet early Saturday.

Risky business in storm country

Further to the pieces from Mark Steyn and others on the bizarre fantasies and rabid drivel of much of the Hurrican Katrina coverage -- the media were strangers to the truth in the week of Katrina,' said Steyn -- Forbes Magazine has a sober analyis of how government's and busineses see rick differently, and how they both coped with Katrina's destruction.

"Katrina is an especially poignant study in risk because the catastrophe was so widely foreseen,' observes Forbes. The weather event itself was not just foreseen, it had for some time been considered a 'once-in-200-years' event. Now, businesses view a 1-in-200-year event as having a1-in-3 likelihood of occuring in the average 77-year lifespan, and invested accordingly. Elected officials on the other hand saw a 1-in-200-year event as a1/50 chance of occurring in a four-year political term, and accordingly they failed to invest, with the consequences we all saw.

A day after the storm, all but ten of the company’s 33 stores in Katrina’s impact zone were open. Within a week, it was down to just four closed stores (of nine total) in metropolitan New Orleans. “We always take tremendous pride in being able to be among the first responders,” says Home Depot CEO Bob Nardelli [in photo right with GWB].

Now there's a case study that some of those elected officials and their cronies could learn from.

More John Soane

Tuesday, October 11, 2005

What did Columbus bring to the New World?

Today is Columbus Day in the States -- today their time, that is -- the day the achievement of Christopher Columbus's discovery of the New World is commemorated. Of course, these days his memory is not so much commemorated as eviscerated. As Ed Hudgins notes in his own 'Weighing of the Columbus cargo' in today's Washington Times:

Many critics argue Christopher Columbus gave us a devil's bargain. In October 1492 that Italian explorer, working for Spain, opened America to his fellow Europeans. The result: We got a prosperous New World by impoverishing, enslaving and murdering the natives who were already here.But this fails to distinguish between two types of exploitation, one over other humans and the other over nature. The former should be expunged from our moral codes and civilized society, the latter is the essence of morality and civilization.

Hudgins comes most unfashionably to praise Columbus rather than to pillory him. Good for him.

An interesting thirst

Cathy apparently needs a drink. Don't we all. She's confused my 'reasoning from' the case of wanting a beer now with a 'reasoning to' that same point. Rather than just 'rationalising a basic human action' as she thought I was doing, I was trying to see where that most basic of human actions -- an overwhelming 'attack of the nows' -- gets us. In this case, the fundamental desire of wanting jam today rather than waiting for jam tomorrow leads to the phenomenon of interest. Who would have thunk it. The idea appealed to me after a couple of beers, and was identical to the point already made by some genuinely learned blokes, one of whom (Mises) has made a whole science out of seeing where these "most basic of human actions" lead us when analysed with some good skull sweat.

Oh well, at least I can agree with her sentiment: "It leads me to the conclusion that I actually need a drink right now." Who could disagree with that (and who needs an excuse)? Who knows where thoughts might lead after a quiet couple?

Which Looney Tune are you?

Heh heh. I'm Wile E. Coyote. And apparently I have weaknesses! Who knew?

You scored 57 Aggression, 57 Sophistication, and 71 Optimism!

You are intelligent, sophisticated, and the physical personification of the can-do attitude. No matter how many times something blows up in your face (figuratively or literally) or prized project collapses around you, you will pick yourself up and try, try again. There is a good chance that you are very skilled in problem solving and would probably make a fine engineer.

Your main weaknesses (and this is likely obvious to everyone but yourself) are your overconfidence and complete lack of perspective. When you inevitably fail at a task (you can’t possibly achieve all of the lofty goals you set for yourself), you tend to take it personally. If you are not careful, you can become thoroughly obsessed with what is not really a very meaty goal. Try taking a step back from time to time and figure out for yourself if it is really worth it, or if your talents could be best put towards a more rewarding goal. Also, your desire for things to work out the way you’ve planned can make you a bit gullible.

Coldest place in the universe

I spent an evening with a Nobel Prize winner last night; me and about three hundred others, at Auckland University's Robb lecture given by physicist Carl Weiman.

Carl Weiman won his prize for producing a Bose-Einsten condensate, meaning that he and his team had managed to cool a collection of atoms down to just billionths of a degree greater than Absolute Zero, the temperature at which there is neither molecular nor atomic motion. Nothing in nature occurs at this temperature -- the background temperature of deep space is some three degrees higher -- so as Weiman pointed out, he can say with complete confidence that his lab in Colorado is the coldest place in the universe.

Production of a small piece of matter this cold does two things: First, it confirms a prediction made nearly eighty years ago by Satyendra Nath Bose and Albert Einstein; and second, it produces a bunch of atoms with some size that are in a single quantum state -- that picture above shows the representation of one of these 'superatoms' being formed; it is in the order of 0.1 mm across! Given that this 'superatom' can be produced on a table-top, instead of needing a cyclotron the size of a cricket oval or more, this is an enormous breakthrough, one offering tremendous opportunities for discovering more abut the quantum universe, and numerous potential technological spinoffs.

Weiman is also intensely interested in the methods of science education -- in his lectures he uses numerous ingenious java applets and other methods to demonstrate difficult scientific concepts in an easy-to-understand manner. Weiman's applets to support this lecture can be found here; his website chockfull of Interactive Physics Simulations is intended to help explain the fundamental concepts of physics, and it's also loads of fun.

The good news is that if this interests you and you missed last night's lecture, there are still two more to come. Details here.

Ig Noble Awards, 2005

An Ig Award is nothing to do with this chap, who will be playing The Big Day Out in the New Year. The Ig Noble Awards are designed to honour accomplishments that “first make people laugh, then make them think.”

Francis Till has a summary of the 2005 winners, which includes a fair smattering of expat New Zealanders. 'Smattering' might be an appopriate choice of word actually, since the winner of the Ig for Fluid Dynamics is a paper co-written by a kiwi "(“Pressures Produced When Penguins Pooh — Calculations on Avian Defacation”) using the basic principles of physics to calculate the pressure that builds up inside a penguin to produce the projectile faeces for which penguins are notorious."

John Soane: Architect of the Enlightenment.

John Soane's Museum (left) and his own Breakfast Room (right), both in his preserved hom in Lincolns Inn Fields, show that while working in the Classical idiom he had a well-developed spatial awareness, and (despite all those pots which he acquired for reference) an eye for simplicity in his detailing.

Monday, October 10, 2005

A buzz about 'Serenity'

Libertarians everywhere are getting excited about a new movie by a chap called Joss Whedon, who some of you lot might know from TV series 'Firefly,' 'Buffy,' and 'Angel' -- I confess I don't.

Writer/director Whedon has said the hero of 'Serenity,' Mal, is "certainly a libertarian, he's certainly a less-government kinda guy." A little girl in the film, questioned why 'independents' would resist 'civilisation' imposed by centralised government answers: "We meddle...People don't like to be meddled with. We tell them what to do, what to think, don't run, don't walk. We're in their homes and in their heads, and we haven't the right. We're meddlesome."

Universal have a nine-minute trailer up on site so you can see in advance what you're going to get. And feel free to check out some of the enthusiastic reviews below. Keep an eye out for it.

[UPDATE, 1: Oops. What idiot forgot to put up the link for the trailer for 'Serenity.'2. Mr Whedon's name corrected.]

--------------------What critics are saying----------------------

"Two thumbs up!" -- Ebert & Roeper

"More engaging and certainly better written and acted than any of Mr. Lucas's recent screen entertainments." -- New York Times

"A strongly acted, well-written story fortified by riveting action sequences — a rarity these days among studio releases — "Serenity" should delight Whedon novices as much as the already converted. " -- Los Angeles Times

"More fun than you had at any bigger-budget movie this past summer." -- New York Magazine

-------------------What libertarians are saying (about both Firefly and Serenity)------------------

After all, Serenity is based on the most consistently libertarian TV show I've ever had the pleasure of experiencing (Firefly).... By voting with our wallets, we as libertarians have the opportunity to show...that the market screams for more libertarian-themed and intelligently-crafted media! -- Seth Daniels, lewrockwell.com

"Perhaps the saddest loss of all was Firefly,...the best ever [science fiction] to appear on television. The military socialists here, quasi- and otherwise, are the bad guys, the heroes are libertarian — capitalists and smugglers all, and the characters' struggle for intelligent, coherent ethics is continuous." -- L. Neil Smith

http://www.reason.com/hod/js093005.shtml"Serenity is not just a string of good chase scenes, but...a surprisingly profound meditation on what freedom means—both in politics and, perhaps more importantly, as a source of personal meaning." -- Julian Sanchez, Reason Magazine

Watching the Tories

LibertyScott is enjoying watching the UK Conservatives' leadership battle, but wonders how many will really care who they pick. "The Conservative Party looks geriatric," he says. It always has.

So can the Tories find a leader from the existing stable of contenders to modernise the party, through off this stuffy image AND establish a clear place on the political spectrum to appeal to British voters sufficiently to win the next election.

Pat Robertson. Idiot.

NEWS: US TV evangelist Pat Robertson said overnight that recent natural disasters around the world point to the end of the world and the imminent return of Jesus Christ.

"These things are starting to hit with amazing regularity," Robertson said in an interview with CNN, pointing to the coincidence of a major earthquake that killed thousands in Asia yesterday and recent killer hurricanes in the United States and the Boxing Day Tsunami.

What an idiot, trying to raise his profile on the back of disaster. If there were any justice, this should be the end of this idiot. Sadly, ...

Robbie Williams: Get off Kate's back

He can't sing, but he can occasionally talk sense: Robbie Williams has gone against the tide of media outrage and defended Kate Moss. "She's done nothing wrong," says Williams. "What she does in her private life should be her own private affair. We are talking about a woman who has never hurt anybody and never pretended to be somebody she isn't."

Williams went on to accuse the media of hypocrisy. He said: “I have personally taken cocaine with the people who are now writing these stories.”

Williams said that he had attended a drug rehabilitation clinic and “it’s not fun”. He hoped Moss recovered because “she deserves to be happy. People should get off her back”.

The future of textbook publishing

Google have done it again. Google Blog Search is one recent boon. Google Scholar allows us, as the slogan says, to "stand on the shoulders of giants." And Google Earth gives us all free access to aerial views of almost anywhere on earth. Bloggers have used it for example to see whether or not Mayor Ray Nagin had buses to use to evacuate the New Orleans Superdome (he did). Google Earth Hacks allow you to see:

AND NOW: Google have produced the face of the future of textbook publishing, Google Print. [Hat tip Stephen Hicks].Whole books; online; searchable!! Some treats that I've found already (well I think they're treats anyway):

Sunday, October 09, 2005

Drinking over time preferences

I was in the liquor store yesterday buying some beer, some wine, and a good vodka for making Martinis (or is that martinis?) -- just as you do on a Saturday -- and at the counter I found myself faced with a dilemma.

My chosen brand of beer was priced at a modest $16.95 a dozen today, but it was pointed out to me that it will be on special Tuesday for a very tempting $13.95 a dozen. The dilemma was resolved in a moment: far preferable to get outside a few beers now, I reasoned, than to sit around until Tuesday with only a dry old promissory note for a cheaper dozen to keep me company.

As I quite happily paid over the odds in order to begin consuming beer now instead of days later (without of course ruling out consuming it on Tuesday as well) I reflected that this is clearly an example of 'time preference' -- a phenomenon first identified by WS Jevons and Eugen von Bohm-Bawerk, and one seen every night in nightclubs across the globe, wherein people happily empty their pockets for a drink NOW rather than wait for satisfation on a later night.

It is a phenomenon that Ludwig von Mises called a universal (a 'categorial,' or a priori) element in human action; put simply, the theory of time preference reflects the overwhelming preference to have two drinks this moment rather than three drinks next week, and it is this universal desire, argues Mises, that explains the phenomeon of interest.

If, for example I borrow money from you today in order to buy a car this afternoon, I'm quite willing to pay extra in order to have the car now rather than next year; thus $1o,000 for that purpose put into my account now is worth more to me than my promise to pay, say, $12,000 over the course of the next two years. As Mises explains it in Human Action:

Time preference is a categorial requisite of human action. No mode of action can be thought of in which satisfaction within a nearer period of the future is not--other things being equal--preferred to that in a later period. The very act of gratifying a desire implies that gratification at the present instant is preferred to that at a later instant. He who consumes a nonperishable good instead of postponing consumption for an indefinite later moment thereby reveals a higher valuation of present satisfaction as compared with later satisfaction.

The theory is not without its critics, of course. Some critics still insist that interest simply reflects the productivity of capital, a notion that both Bohm-Bawerk and Mises effectively dismissed -- there is no evidence, Mises pointed out, of a "time-structure" in the capital stock of a society; further, the present valuation of income-producing capital will already have anticipated the future income stream. Brian Caplan rejects Mises' time-prefence theory for a different reason, in that he puts the origin of interest down to diminishing marginal utility:

You don't need time preference to get people to divide their consumption between today and tomorrow; all you need is diminishing marginal utility. If you are stuck on an island with two bananas for two days, a perfectly patient person would still want to eat one banana per day. Even though he disvalues hunger today and hunger tomorrow equally, eating one banana today assuages his hunger more effectively than saving that banana for tomorrow.

Lawrence White however argues that Caplan's criticism doesn't stack up. First off, Caplan talks about perishable rather than imperishable goods (contra Mises) and assumes too an ever-expanding economy; for another, diminishing marginal utility "doesn’t explain why, even when today and tomorrow are equally provisioned, the market characteristically values a dollar today higher than a dollar tomorrow. That’s a fact that we need time preference to explain." I'm with White on this one.

Israel Kirzner has another beef with Mises' theory, one I'm inclined to agree with; says Kirzner:

The pure-time-preference theory [that Kirzner has] written about is not based on a priori reasoning. I've merely concluded that time preference is a reasonably universal empirical phenomenon. I ask my students: do you know anybody who is indifferent between receiving a paycheck now and receiving it in ten years? The answer is no. To me, that is enough to provide the basis of the theory.

As I drank my beer, I reflected that he's probably correct. And if true, it means that bankers and nightclub owners have more in common than might otherwise be thought, for they both earn their money by trading on the basis of this universal phenomeon of time preference.

So, what did Indonesia do to deserve this, or bring it on itself? How will the slaughter in Bali improve the lot of the Palestinians? Those who look for the connection will be doomed to ask increasingly stupid questions and to be content with increasingly wicked answers.

Meanwhile, Lindsay Perigo has examined George W's recent speech on the continuing war on Terror and finds much to savour in what the President says, but finds too a disturbing contradiction:

There is both reassurance and folly in George W. Bush’s speech on terrorist-maggotry today at the National Endowment for Democracy. It is reassuring that he appears to be unmoved by the tide of treacherous Saddamy lapping at his doorstep... Reassuring also that the President does not buy into the view that what Western civilisation faces can be dismissed as mere random madness... But it’s disturbing that he repeats the error of separating the species from the genus... Jihad, the slaying of idolators “wherever ye find them” is at the heart of Islam and permeates the Koran . The fact that most Muslims are not currently engaged in it doesn’t mean it’s not a requirement of their religion.

If you still doubt these claims about the Koran, check out the Skeptic's Annotated Koran for the vicious intolerance and blind cruelty contained within. For on this point, argues Perigo, is contained the contradiction that Bush is yet to resolve :

Islam itself is a malignancy on the body of humanity. The actions of its consistent, true practitioner-maggots demonstrate that. But Bush can’t afford to say it. He himself is in thrall to a vicious religion that seems benign only because it has lost its political power—and under his Administration threatens to reclaim it. The President is undone by his own contradictions.

Tip Jar

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Recent
Comments

Wisdom of sorts
"Alcohol is necessary so that a man can have a good opinion of himself, undisturbed by the facts.”- Some drunk

Ok - since you are leaving that there for the weekend I forgive you for giving all us women the vapours over at my blog....;-)
Some cultures deserved to die out
the aztecs were wiped out precisely because their culture was so bad They captured sacreficial victims from out lying areas,when hernanez cortez arived he defeated the aztecs not just with his 180 odd conquestadors but with several thousand nativeswho joined to topple the aztecs.The Spanish formed the the right flank with superior weaponry in a battle between mostly natives from the coastle regions and the aztecs from what is now mexico cityBasicaly a similar sitioation happened in the eastern front in WW2 where one million Rusians defected to the Nazis in spite of the Nazis raping ang pillaging
Can't agree more PC. And what should happen to cultures that cuts babies to pieces while still in their mothers womb?
But, what about the ancient Roman culture that was wipped out by the barbarians from Briton and Europe for almost a thousand years?
As a lot of our law codes and literature is still Latin, and was partially continued by the Roman Church, I think we lost something.

On the other hand, a slave society could never have produced capitalism, you need protestantism for that as some have claimed.

But I think PC's post is more an answer to people who find it a tragedy that certain primitive cultures were "wiped" out by us white man.
Interesting but the final Machan quote suggests a question. Is culture a collectivist notion? How would you define culture?

As one who considers himself an individualist (classical liberal) and yet concerned with the requisite culture required to sustain a liberal order, I find these questions interesting and wonder how others would answer them.
Also, among the existing cultures, can you predict which one deserves to die out? A case at hand: the Tibetian culture.
Still, I think there is a danger in this line of thought - the notion that dog-eat-dog, survival of the most economic, represents progress.
I find myself wondering what will be the legacy of this age of civilsation. You condemn the Maya for human sacrifice yet many many more people die nowadays of wars, disease, plain starvation and neglect Than were ever killed by ritual sacrifice. Just because we dont personally witness it safely insulated in a coccoon somewhere does not make us anybetter tahn the Maya. All this while a wealthy minority, yes you whitey, looks on tut tutting.
Nice try, anonymous coward. Can you respond to these points?

*The average life expectancy today is as high as it has ever been, and climbing. In Mayan times you would be *very* lucky to reach 30. (I wonder how a 10 year old native child would feel if he were told that his impending sacrifice was OK because it was culturally sanctioned, and all cultures are equally valid? Bullshit.)

*All the problems you talk about (disease, war, starvation, etc) existed in Mayan times, only 10,000 times worse. The concept of "medicine" barely existed, getting food was often a day-to-day struggle, the legal system was arbitrary and unfair, etc.

*Today, the average "poverty-stricken" person in our culture lives better than a Mayan Priest-King. I say that with little sense of hyperbole.

Face it, our Western culture IS, objectively, the best culture the world has ever seen. Mayan culture may have been interesting in its own way, but there is no reason to lament its passing.
Some SaveTheHumans classics
"SaveTheHumans has been too fucking unfunny for too long. It's a disgrace."

Ouch, that hurts. I will have to do something about that. (I figure with all the visitors you refer to my site each month, you deserve it.)

-Jasonsavethehumans.com
When fridge meets philosopher
Rodney the thinker
I've been very impressed with Rodney's posting over the last few days.

For me, it was a toss up between Libnz and ACT...I'm glad we kept him in parliament.
Cale speaks
New site poll: What will Winston do?
UK Libertarian Conference
'Peter Rabbit: Tank Killer'
Hahaha, I just printed it out and will give it to my son, the Rabbit's namesake, to read it for himself!
Excellent, Hong. :-)

Perhaps you could follow up with an entire set of Sven Hassells? No, maybe not. ;^)
So Peter Rabbit was defending the Third Reich? :-)
" So Peter Rabbit was defending the Third Reich? :-)"

A yes, a conspiracy theory. Clearly, the author intended Peter R. to be fighting the Third Reich: Peter shoots Tiger tank in the text, not T34. But the artist clearly had other ideas, showing him wearing a German helmet, and shooting a Russian tank with an American bazooka. Maybe Sven Hassel drew the pictures?

Franky, I think there's much more to this story.
"Perhaps you could follow up with an entire set of Sven Hassells? No, maybe not. ;^) "

Judging by the titles of his tales ("SS Death Bastard Regiment"???), I need to scan them first myself. ;-)
Maybe this quote from "Comrades Of War" will tell you all you need to know about Sven's work. I did find them amusing once long ago.

(Tiny at the whorehouse in Hamburg.)

Hello girls, here I am again. Hot as hell. My balls are boiling. I love you. Let's get something to drink in a hurry, and then we'll go to the bunks according to good custom when decent people meet.

From

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A379406
Yes, I know. This will definitely not pass the censorship of my household (that is me :-)). Peter the Tank Killer is a borderline case. It passed only becasue the pictures are too cute!
Visiting site with dry feet
Wounded Lion still bleats like a lamb
Invade where?
Macro-who? Micro-what?
Your brain is going to explode if you keep reading all this rubbish. 99.5% of economics is pure bullshit and of no practical use to man or beast.

Really all the man in the street needs to read is Thomas Sowell's Basic Economics.

BTW I have a banner for this blog.
I saw your post and saw 1 comment. I knew it would be Ruth moaning before I even clicked the link.

FGS Ruth, piss off if you don't rate what PC writes.
No don't go! It amuses the hell out of me.

Not for nothing, Rabbit is one of the best ever Disney characters. I think Ruth must love carrots.
My goodness you are touchy Bates aren't you. Don't tell me what to do. A few idiots with computers and a bad opinion of me are not on my radar screen I'm afraid. That includes YOU.

I am not moaning, I am agreeing with him. As for not rating PC - what rubbish - I worship the deity.
Settle, people, settle. I'm gratified to see that the Cafe Hayek link was the fifth most popular here yesterday, so a few (more) brain explosions have hopefully resulted. :-)

I confess I haven't yet had the pleasure of Sowell's 'Basic Economics' -- and I understad it is both very good an available via Google Print -- but if one book on the subject is to be recommended my choice would definitely be Henry Hazlitt's 'Economics on One Lesson,' which you can either buy and carry around, or download from the FEE site in PDF format. How's that for convenient. Here's the link:

PS: Nice banner.
Bottled stupidity
I never go back to Canterbury without bringing home whatever water I can carry to Auckland. I used to think it was mad, but there is a big difference.

The best stuff comes out of the laundry tap.
This really is a scam and yes, this is for suckers. It costs twice as much as a litre of petrol and it falls out of the bloody sky. No processing needed.
No sorry PC, London tap water while safe and ok to brush my teeth with, is not for my consumption - and so I drink Naive backwards. It is better than most of the warm beer too. However I never bought bottled stuff in NZ unless I was travelling and needed the bottle!
Oh, harden up Scott. :-)

Seriously, keep a bottle of London tap water in your fridge and you'll be fine.
Blogrolling
thanks for linking to me PC.

thought you might like this site (I imagine you've probably seen it though):

With all due respect, when your loudest critic is a mindless douche bag like Brian Connell - whose idea of strategic genius is getting in a public pissing match over the Civil Unions Bill with his lesbian, ex-journalist sister in law - I'd sleep easy.
Islamo-Fascists, "Australia is not for you"
The best thing Howard has ever said - such clarity and he is right. Clark couldn't get away with that, because the same would apply to the Marxist-Leninists and ethno-fascists aligned to the Maori Party - but if only she WOULD or Brash would. Make liberal Western democracy with the separation of powers, and fundamental individual rights a bottom line.
Still no Government
Spkg of no or little govt, I was rapt to watch Penn & Teller's 'Bullshit' on Prime last night. First time I've ever seen it and what a breath of fresh air!

They were lampooning the key promoters of NY State's 'anti-smoking' laws based on an (now disproved) EPA report; interviewing legions of New Yorkers openly bemoaning the loss of freedom/encroachment of govt, etc.

I loved one old guy in particular: 'I always thought that when fascism came to America, it would be wearing a white coat and a stethoscope'. Right on, buddy.

They also interviewed a 'libertarian' - yes, they actually used the term - talkshow host called (from memory) Larry Elder who railed against political correctness and big govt. Cool guy. And, begorrah, he's black.

P&T also tore into that crap idea from a couple of years ago, 'the Mozart theory', whereby the exposure of infants to a daily 10 minutes of Mozart would make them smarter. In fact they destroyed the whole 'do anything to make your eight-week old smarter' industry!

I loved the programme! They were merciless.

Anyone else see it?
The PM as a leader is simply a figurehead for those behind the scenes, those who are running the government departments, etc. A figurehead isn't necessary for the departments - and the country - to keep on running.

Your point, however, is true - that the country doesn't need a PM. But, is the government made up of the PM, or of the departments within it? It's those government departments and the people within them that make it all happen.
Pakistan disaster
In the 80's and the 90's, there were quite a few psychic predictions of 'earth changes' happening in the early 2000's. I find it interesting that their predictions - generally - seem to be coming true.
'Kill them all, let Allah sort them out' - Zarqawi
Risky business in storm country
More John Soane
What did Columbus bring to the New World?
An interesting thirst
Which Looney Tune are you?
I am the rabbit.
I'm a Wile one. But with superduper levels of aggression and optimism and only as much sophistication as Cresswell- which is just so wrong.

But..Oh, and always remember, it's a left at Albuquerque.

What the hell is that? Some kind of inside joke? I've heard that before somewhere.
Yosemite Sam

Someone's seen me with my sixguns!
I'm Bugs Bunny - hmmmmmm so many different personalities
Coldest place in the universe
hi pc,

a quick nitpick:Absolute Zero, the temperature at which there is neither molecular nor atomic motion.

classically, this is how absolute zero was "found". but this has been known to be wrong for a long time now - one manifestation of the uncertainty principle is that the better you know a particles momentum (atomic motion) the less you can know its position:dx dp = constant(dp -> 0, means that dx -> very large number)

so that if your experiment did indeed stop particles completely it would no longer be the size of a table-top, or a cricket oval, but infinite (!!).

the correct term to use is that the atoms are all in their "ground" state, which is their lowest possible energy state.

this is what makes BEC's interesting. quantum mechanically there are 2 types of particles: bosons and fermions.fermions (like electrons, or anything with with half-integer "spin") have the property that 2 particles can't be in the same state. however bosons, (like photons, or anything with integral "spin" - in special circumstances 2 fermions can join together in to make a boson too) can all have the same state. in a bose-einstein condensate the state they all have is the ground state.

sorry if you don't care about the detals; undoubtedly you heard most of this last night, but when informing others it's important to get the terms right!

cheers
Carl Weiman's lab isn't always the coldest place in the universe. There's a lab at Otago that regularly gets just as chilly.I would have gone down to the third floor to get them out for beers more often but I could never figure out what the hell they were talking about.And, btw, the anon comments above are not mine :-)
Coldest place in the universe?Next to Helen Clark's heart!!
I was there as well, it looks like it's going to be great lecture series. I'm supprised you didn't ask a question about the uncertainty principle Peter...not like you to hold back. :-)
"I was there as well, it looks like it's going to be great lecture series."

The place was packed, wasn't it Mepoc. Good to see."I'm surprised you didn't ask a question about the uncertainty principle Peter...not like you to hold back. :-)"Nothing wrong with the observations involved in forming that principle, Mepoc, just in its many misinterpretations. ;^0 Not really the time and place for ~that~ discussion, do you think. A group of us are keen to pursue that topic again soon though if you're interested -- discussing the philosophical implications of modern physics?

"Carl Weiman's lab isn't always the coldest place in the universe. There's a lab at Otago that regularly gets just as chilly."

Yes, he pointed out there are now 200 or so working BEC experiments, although he did think NZ's only one was in Auckland. I hope you did go down and ask for ice cubes -- a BEC condensate would surely make a perfect martini., :-)

Anon: "The correct term to use is that the atoms are all in their "ground" state, which is their lowest possible energy state." In my defence, I did give a link to explain the concept more thoroughly, but I was trying to make the difficult more intelligible. Talk of "ground states" or asymptotic conditions might have sent them straight to the fridge. Fascinating, isn't it, how those pictures above come as close as we've come to seeing the 'graininess' of the universe in concrete terms.

"This is what makes BEC's interesting. quantum mechanically there are 2 types of particles: bosons and fermions."

Thanks anon. Details are good. I've been sent a link that explains the differences quite nicely: http://particleadventure.org/particleadventure/frameless/chart.html Carl Wieman was asked to explain the difference last night, and he said perhaps the quickest way he could explain it was to say that you can make a BEC with bosons, but not with fermions. :-)
Ig Noble Awards, 2005..inside a penguin to produce the projectile faeces for which penguins are notorious."

How did I get to live this long and only be learning this now?
John Soane: Architect of the Enlightenment.
A buzz about 'Serenity'
Hmm. Not sure that 'it's certainly better acted & written than any of Mr Lucas's recent screen entertainments' is much of an endorsement.

I dozed off during 'Revenge of the Sith'. So did my brother-in-law. Worse, he snored. Loudly.

Still, in the immortal words of Darryl Kerrigan: 'love that serenity!'
Serenity will be awesome, I enjoyed the series.

Another movie that is worth keeping tabs on is V for Vendetta http://vforvendetta.warnerbros.com/

I've read the original graphic novel version, and its the strongest freedom-oriented fiction I've ever read, although the art is perhaps a little dated.

Strictly speaking, its more anarchistic than libertarian, the hero, V, wages a sophisticated and clever war against a fascist english government of the future.

You might like it PC, would you like me to post it up to you to have a read?
It's Joss not Josh, get it right Pater.
Peter,

I haven't seen Serenity yet but Buffy is defitely worth checking out if you have the chance :-)

MH
I have to admit that I have seen the Firefly series on DVD at least three times. :) PC, see if you can borrow it from somebody and decide for yourself. It's not The Prisoner, but it's bloody good.
Don't miss the Rick Review.

ps I've been watching The Prisoner and it's not livin' up to expectations. Number 6 woudln't last long on the Nikita TV show which takes this stuff to the nth.
"Hmm. Not sure that 'it's certainly better acted & written than any of Mr Lucas's recent screen entertainments' is much of an endorsement."

Not for me anyway, since I haven't seen any of Mr Lucas's space operas. I presumed that might interest some others though. :-)

Robin, I have seen the 'V for Vendetta' comic book -- it was floating arond here for some time. Alas, I'm afraid both comic books and graphic novels leave me as cold as watching ballet. Sorry. The plotline sounds a little like the Victorian-era novel-without-pictures, 'The Secret of the League' by Ernest Bramah. A few people have been accused of 'borrowing' from that one.

"I haven't seen Serenity yet but Buffy [the Vampire Slayer] is defitely worth checking out if you have the chance :-)"

Um ... I always assumed from the title it was either unintentional comedy or pubsescent self-indulgence. Either way, how can I say this, it doesn't appear to be my cup of hot chocolate. Perhaps I'll give it the ten-minute test next time it and I are in the same room together. ;^)

"Don't miss the Rick Review."

Sadly ...

"ps I've been watching The Prisoner and it's not livin' up to expectations."

Why am I not surprised. If you don't like Bogart, why would you like McGoohan?

"Number 6 woudln't last long on the Nikita TV show which takes this stuff to the nth."

WTF is a Nikita? (That's a rhetorical question BTW.)

"Still, in the immortal words of Darryl Kerrigan: 'love that serenity!'"

Let's hope so!. ;^)
La Fem Nikita is a modern version of The Prisioner. Except that by the time in the show McGoohan is just starting to second guess who he can trust, Nikita has already double-crossed her allies, faked her own death, out-strategised and tripple-second-guessed her puppet masters, fallen in and out of bisexual love and escaped capture only to wake up in her cell the next day to find that's what the psychometrics computer predicted from her all along.

No way the people who made Nikita hadn't watched The Prisoner as kids.

(That's a rhetorical answer BTW.)
Watching the Tories
Actually, this David Cameron chap looks reasonably good from where I'm standing. Not consistently libertarian but definitely has flair.

MH
If only he could admit he smoked dope at some point while at uni, that unlike Tony Blair he is prepared to admit to having done it, that many have tried it - but he's grown up and moved beyond it.

The sad thing is while that would make him far more electable, the rank and file Tories would stick their noses in the air and turn their backs on him... much like the National Party would in similar circumstances.
Pat Robertson. Idiot.
Robbie Williams: Get off Kate's back
Well said Robbie! Up yours all those "holier than thou" liars who got high years ago and now play the innocent...bullshit!If smoking some dak was an instant exit from society then we would have no cops at all on the beat ...thats the two faced shit coming home to rest...
I'm also not holding my breath waiting for houses like Channel & Burberry - which dropped Moss like the proverbial hot potato - to announce that they will be drug and alcohol testing their employees and contractors (including runway models) from now on.

It's not all bad for Moss though. I've seen serious speculation that the Police won't bring a prosecution, because the level and virulence of the media coverage makes it virtually impossible to guarantee her a fair trial.
The future of textbook publishing
Drinking over time preferences
A serious post without Ayn bloody Rand mentioned at all. Great!

Another concept is propinquity. A preference/higher valuation for that in spatial proximity - but I think it works well with time too. Also, to throw in more economic concepts, there is a risk factor in not taking possession/using something now and waiting for it - an opportunity cost. Also the actor may not have perfect information about the object or situation that they are waiting for. Then there is game theory is more than one actor is involved. Fascinating stuff...

I remember Rodney Hide telling me that Mises was his favourite economist. Something about people making decisions to act. I haven't read anything by Mises so I can't comment further than that.
All true, except that vodka does not a martini make.

That requires Gin! ;-)
What about the effect of extraordinary external influences such as hyper-inflation upon decision-making? I wonder what Mises et al would make of the following:

In 1984 I was working in Israel, where inflation was running at about 300%. This meant that the local Israeli shekel was not the preference in most shops/businesses; hard currency (the US$ was particularly strong that year) was the goer. However, if not exactly welcome, the shekel was still grudgingly accepted.

There was a large car dealership just outside the old city in Jerusalem. The exchange rates would be broadcast daily during the midday news. At 11.50am a staff member would remove the pricetags from under the wipers and return with the new (higher) pricetags about 12.15pm.

So in real terms you were virtually forced to do your shopping - be it for food or cars - as early as possible, because the later you left it, the higher the prices. Quite surreal.

When I left the country in Oct that year, the predictions were for inflation to reach 1000% which was reported to have occurred by the end of the year. Argentina was the only other country (of significance) that enjoyed that ignominious status at the time.
t selwyn - if you've not read anything from Ludwig von Mises, check out the Ludwig von Mises Institute website.
But the real question that remains is:

Mises and his fellow Austrians wrote extensively on the phenomenon and destructive effects of inflation (see for example Inflation and Price Control, or you can try searching that online 'Human Action' if you like). Here's a few pieces that might interest you on the subject of Germany's 1923 hyperinflation:

Mises: The Great German Inflation"From the early days of the war till the end of June 1922 the Reichsbank rate remained unchanged at 4 per cent.; it was raised to 6 per cent. in July, to 7 per cent. in August, 8 per cent. in September and 10 per cent. in November 1922, to 12 per cent. in January 1923, 19 per cent. in April, 30 per cent. in August and 90 per cent. in September. But these increases were as nothing when measured alongside the progressive lightening in the burden of a loan during the time for which it ran. Though, after September 1923, a bank or private individual had to pay at the rate of 900 per cent. per annum for a loan from the Reichsbank, this was no deterrent to borrowing. It would have been profitable to pay a so-called interest, in reality an insurance, charge, of thousands or even millions of per cents. per annum, since the money in which the loan would be repaid was depreciating at a speed which would have left even rates like these far in the rear. With a 900 per cent. interest rate in September 1923 the Reichsbank was practically giving money away and the same is true of the lower rates in the preceding months when the course of depreciation was not quite so headlong.

Richard Ebeling: From the President: The Great German InflationDuring the last months of the Great Inflation, according to Gustav Stolper, “more than 30 paper mills worked at top speed and capacity to deliver notepaper to the Reichsbank, and 150 printing firms had 2,000 presses running day and night to print the Reichsbank notes.”

But these statistical figures do not tell the human impact of such a catastrophic collapse of a country’s monetary system. In his book, Before the Deluge: A Portrait of Berlin in the 1920s (1972), Otto Friedrich writes that “By the middle of 1923, the whole of Germany had become delirious. Whoever had a job got paid every day, usually at noon, and then ran to the nearest store, with a sack full of banknotes, to buy anything that he could get, at any price. In their frenzy, people paid millions and even billions of marks for cuckoo clocks, shoes that didn’t fit, anything that could be traded for anything else.” The price of a cup of coffee would double in the time that a customer took to drink it in a café.

Food supplies became both an obsession and a currency. The breakdown of the medium of exchange meant that the rural farmers became increasingly reluctant to sell their agricultural goods for worthless paper money in the cities. Urban dwellers streamed back to the countryside to live with relatives in order to have something to eat. Anything and everything was offered and traded directly for food to stave off the pangs of hunger.

The inflation generated a vast and illusionary economic boom. In his classic study, The Economics of Inflation (1931), Constantino Bresciani-Turroni detailed how the inflation distorted the structure of prices and wages, generating paper profits that created a false conception of wealth and prosperity. Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises was the first one to emphasize this aspect of the inflationary process...
The real question is actually "which beer did you actually buy"?
I think the real question is, "If a butterfly flaps its wings in central park, will I be a teetotaller"? or maybe, "If drink a Martini in a plane at 30 000 feet, will I get drunk more quickly than if I was sitting in an inflattable deckchair, in the middle of the Pacific ocean sipping my vodka"? Alcohol content being equal.
Cheers Peter. Fascinating and bizarre .. & not necessarily in that order.

I remember studying The Weimar Republic at high school and seeing pictures of Germans wheeling barrows of notes to buy one loaf of bread.

It's monetary insanity. Living it was truly weird.
Thanks DB.
Blame the terrorists